Madeleine L'Engle and A Wrinkle in Time

Today, my friend Mary and I took the kids to see A Wrinkle in Time. I had read the book so long ago that I couldn't remember anything about it. 

The one thing I do remember as a child is that the book was decried as blasphemous by many Christians. Until yesterday, I thought it was because the book had so many feminist themes. I also noted that there are some similarities between "the Misses" and Gaia, known as Mother Earth. (In my experience, you never know what will trigger a fundamentalist, but something certainly will!) 

I realized also that I knew nothing of Madeleine L'Engle. So I looked her up on Wikipedia: 

L'Engle was an Episcopalian and believed in universal salvation, writing that, "All will be redeemed in God's fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones." 

As a result of her promotion of Christian universalism, many Christian bookstores refused to carry her books, which were also frequently banned from Christian schools and libraries. 

At the same time, some of her most secular critics attacked her work for being too religious.

Her views on divine punishment were similar to those of George MacDonald, who also had a large influence on her fictional work. 

She said "I cannot believe that God wants punishment to go on interminably any more than does a loving parent. The entire purpose of loving punishment is to teach, and it lasts only as long as is needed for the lesson. And the lesson is always love."

Are. You. Freaking. Kidding. Me.
That's why we weren't supposed to read it?

From the moment I had enough brains in my head to know anything, I knew there was something wrong with my "religion." It seemed over and over again that leaders in my church were willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater - demanding total adherence to rigid, antiquated teachings while not taking into consideration that most things in life are anything but absolute. It is inane to live life like that. When I refused to accept everything they said as the God-given truth, I was admonished. Shamed. Ostracized. For thinking.

A Wrinkle in Time is about love. If you read this book or see this movie and can't see that, you're too stupid to be leading a church full of people. 

End rant.